Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined, with thousands more dying from spit tobacco use. Of the more than 200,000 kids who become new regular, daily smokers each year, almost a third will ultimately die from it. In addition, smokers lose a decade of life because of their smoking.

Tobacco-Related Monetary Costs in the USA

Total annual public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking: Approximately $170 Billion

Additional smoking-caused health costs caused by tobacco use include annual expenditures for health and developmental problems of infants and children caused by mothers smoking or being exposed to second-hand smoke during pregnancy or by kids being exposed to parents smoking after birth. Also not included above are costs from smokeless or spit tobacco use, adult secondhand smoke exposure, or pipe/cigar smoking.

Productivity losses caused by smoking each year: $151 billion

[Only includes costs from productive work lives shortened by smoking-caused death. Not included: costs from smoking caused disability during work lives, smoking-caused sick days, or smoking-caused productivity declines when on the job.]

Other non-healthcare costs from tobacco use include residential and commercial property losses from smoking-caused fires, tobacco-related cleaning & maintenance, and expenditures through Social Security Survivors Insurance for kids who have lost at least one parent from a smoking-caused death.

Tobacco Industry Advertising & Political Influence

Research studies have found that kids are three times as sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults and are more likely to be influenced to smoke by cigarette marketing than by peer pressure; and that a third of underage experimentation with smoking is attributable to tobacco company advertising and promotion.

Tobacco company PAC contributions to federal candidates, 2018 election cycle: More than $1 million